Health IQ Life Insurance Review: Life Insurance For Health Conscious People

Health IQ is a unique, new U.S. based life insurance agency that promises low rates for health-conscious individuals.

I first heard of Health IQ when they advertised on the Bulletproof Radio podcast. I liked the concept–as the problem they’re solving (lower rates for health-conscious individuals) had been on my mind. I’ve been a life insurance agent for 10+ years and a CFP® for 6.

The marketing team at Health IQ recently reached out to me. I had the opportunity to talk to their team–as well as go through the quoting process myself.

In this Health IQ life insurance review, I’ll cover:

Overview of the Health IQ business model and their competitive intelligence

What does health-conscious mean and how do you qualify for a lower rate

Process of getting a quote

Health IQ Business Model Overview

The way the most of the life insurance industry solves a difficult problem of determining the price you’ll pay for life insurance is the classify each individual into four main groups:

Preferred Plus

Preferred

Standard Plus

Standard

While these classifications vary a bit from company to company and it’s a bit more complicated if you’re in poor health–this is fairly standard.

Life insurance companies then have rate tables based on your:

Age

Gender

Smoking status

When you apply for life insurance you go through an underwriting process. The underwriting process takes a look at factors such as your health history, family health history, and the results of your physical (if required).

An underwriter then looks at your results and assigns to you a classification (i.e. preferred plus, preferred, etc…). Then, the underwriter looks at the company’s rate tables to determine the price you’ll pay.

This has been the way life insurance companies have operated for decades. It provides them a consistent profit.

Taking a step-back, what the life insurance companies are doing here is betting that you won’t die or will live a long-time. This will maximize their profit.

On an individual basis, they’re taking a pretty big risk. They may collect only a few hundred dollars from you each year and they’re on the hook for a lot more if you die. However, since that risk is spread out and they have data accumulated over many years, they make a profit.

If a life insurance company wanted to–they could collect more information about you to determine your rate. Potentially, having more classifications than just the four. However, more information would come at an expense to them.

So, say you have two different individuals:

Health-Conscious – This person eats healthy and has a regular workout practice in their lives, .i.e. health-conscious

Not Health-Conscious – This person isn’t overweight but not in great shape. They don’t pay much attention to what they eat. While not a couch potato, they don’t have a regular workout routine. You wouldn’t say this person is unhealthy, however, they certainly don’t have a lot of healthy habits in their life.

If you’re the life insurance company, the person you want to insure is the health-conscious individual. However, based on the information you collect this is difficult to sort out.

A NOT health-conscious person at say 30-years old can have regular blood work, a clean health history, etc…

With only four general classifications, this Not Health-Conscious person has a high chance of being assigned to the preferred plus rate class. Meaning they’ll pay the same amount for life insurance as the health-conscious person.

This is the problem Health IQ is trying to solve. Their goal is to provide a lower life insurance rate for health-conscious individuals.

Learning how they do this was pretty unique.

Health IQ Competitive Intelligence

In order to provide a lower rate for health-conscious individuals, Health IQ needed to:

Prove that health-conscious individuals have a lower chance of dying

A way to determine whether or not someone is health-conscious at scale

They had over 1,000,000 individuals take a Health IQ quiz. They then tracked the data over a few years to see if:

They could determine who was health-conscious with a quiz

Do health-conscious individuals actually live longer and therefore can be insured for less

According to their team, they were able to gather data successfully on both.

Once they had their data, they then went to life insurance companies to see if they would provide a lower rate for these individuals.

Which Health IQ was successful in doing. According to Health IQ, they are the only life insurance company that offers a rate class above Preferred Plus. Therefore, if you do qualify for the Health IQ rate (about 1 out of 5 people qualify for), it’s often the least expensive life insurance policy you’ll find.

What Does Health-Conscious Mean?

They cater towards health-conscious individuals, i.e. people who have established healthy habits in their lives.

The specialized athlete/dieter who have unique characteristics about them that could potentially disqualify them for preferred rate status among most insurers. For example, an endurance athlete who has a slow-resting heart rate or someone on the keto diet who has high cholesterol.

To qualify for the special Health IQ rate you must achieve an elite score on their Health IQ quiz.

The quiz will vary based on your lifestyle. For example, for weightlifters there’s one quiz, bicycle riders a separate quiz.

Health IQ has a wide variety of different quizzes for:

Healthy eaters

Athletes

Yogis

Weightlifters

Cyclists

Vegans

Runners

Tennis players

Swimmers

Health IQ Life Insurance Review: The Process of Getting a Quote

While putting together this Health IQ life insurance review, I couldn’t help but wonder if I qualified for a special rate.

I consider myself a health-conscious person. I can’t be put into a specific classification (keto, yogi, runner, etc…) However, I pay a lot of attention to my health–eating a whole food, mostly organic diet and remain active in a variety of ways (basketball, hiking, yoga, and weightlifting,)

The process of determining my rate started with the Health IQ quiz.

My quiz was tailored to the fact that I’m a general health-conscious person. Therefore, most of the questions were about nutrition and general fitness topics.

The questions are not designed to be easy. Keep in mind, it’s these questions that Health IQ uses to determine if you’re eligible for a special rate.

By earning an elite status on the quiz, you would place yourself in their elite category which qualifies you for a special rate. After completing the quiz, I did indeed qualify for Health IQ’s special lower rate.

Health IQ Life Insurance Review: What Happens After Quote

After earning an elite classification, a member of the Health IQ team soon reached out.

I briefly discussed my lifestyle with them, which then I was transferred to a licensed agent.

After a few minutes with the licensed Health IQ agent, I was able to see the special rates Health IQ offers.

This was indeed a savings off of what I saw on other quote comparison sites and what I’m paying now. From what I’m seeing, it’s about a 10% discount off the preferred rates I find elsewhere.

My understanding is that for other individuals (especially where there’s more quantifiable data, such as a runner who tracks their miles via an app) discounts can get up to 25% preferred rates.

It’s also important to understand that Health IQ is an agency. They are not the insurer.

They have negotiated special Health IQ rates with certain carriers.

Then, they work with around 20 A+ rated insurance companies, which offer the same rates you’ll find on most of the larger life insurance comparison sites.

So, even if you don’t qualify for the special Health IQ rate, your policy is being shopped around to many of the top insurers.

Another aspect of Health IQ I found positive was that the fact they don’t require a medical exam if you’re applying for less than $500,000 in coverage.

Health IQ Life Insurance Review Summary

If you’re at the point in life where you need life insurance or want to see if you can save money off of what you’re currently paying, Health IQ offers a very efficient, streamlined process with a potential to qualify for a lower rate for health-conscious individuals.

About The Author

R.J. Weiss is the founder and editor of The Ways To Wealth, a Certified Financial Planner™, husband and father of three. He's spent the last 10+ years writing about personal finance and has been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, MSN Money, and other publications.

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